


Dark Times

by EmaniaHilel



Series: Cup of Coffee [2]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: F/M, Song Inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 03:36:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11523723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmaniaHilel/pseuds/EmaniaHilel
Summary: Marie tells Logan she loves him. Sister-Fic to "Cup of Coffee"; the events of that story as told through Logan's point of view. You don't need to have read that one to understand this one, they sort of compliment each other.





	Dark Times

**Author's Note:**

> A great huge thanks to RogueLotus who helped me edit this story and convinced me it didn't suck.

**_Dark Times  
By Emania_ ** __

__

_*i*  
“Waking up, half past five / blood on pillow, and one bruised eye / drank too much, you know what I’m like / you should’ve seen the other guy…”_

The morning after Marie’s 18th’s birthday dawned not unlike a hundred other mornings, his face sticky from the blood he’d shed on the pillow after he’d passed out from drinking too much, the stench of dried sweat still on him and the copper tang of dried blood in the air. Cage fights were never pretty, but he’d been getting sloppy with them lately. He didn’t kid himself as to why either.

Halfway to the bathroom, shedding ripped and blood stained t-shirt and jeans on the way, Logan cursed under his breath as he remembered that it was the morning he’d promised to pick her up after her all night romp in the City with her friends. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table and figured he had about an hour and a half before she was due to show up at that diner off the I-278. 

He cracked his neck as he padded into the bathroom naked, turning taps and stepping under the cold spray of water, dipping his head under the shower head, watching numbly as dried blood streamed off him and down the drain. 

He was a fucking mess.

Reminding himself that most of that blood wasn’t his didn’t change his opinion of himself any.

_*ii*  
“This ain’t the right time for you to fall in love with me /Baby, I’m just being honest…”_

Marie was there with several of her friends by the time he showed up, and they were laughing and joking. He could smell them from the door, smelling of sweat and alcohol and cigarette smoke, adrenaline still rushing, one or two of sex and other things. The dregs of coffee and breakfast scattered on the table in front of them.

Mixed with it, but still distinguishable like a drop of blood that was clearly visible in a pool of water, was the scent of Marie. Her eyes found him before he even made it to one of the booths by the window. She smiled at him as their eyes met and turned back to her friends who were all standing, reaching into pockets to lay money on the table, digging around for keys and hugging goodbye. Sometimes, he wondered what she saw when she looked at him on mornings like these.

When the waitress approached him, he ordered two coffees and sat back, waiting for her to come to him, trying to feel nothing as he watched her say goodbye to her friends, looking over at him even as they were still hugging her goodbye and wishing her happy birthday again. 

“You sure you’ll be okay here by yourself?” one of the girls asked Marie. 

She smiled. “Yep,” she assured them. “Ride’s already here,” she motioned with a jerk of her head to where he was sitting, but didn’t point him out. 

The girl glanced in his direction and turned back to Marie, nearing her enough to whisper. “You _sure_ you’ll be okay?” the girl asked skeptically. Logan could hear it, though he pretended not to notice when the girl looked at him again. “He seems kinda dangerous,” the girl added. 

He heard Marie chuckle and hug her friend. “I’m good,” she assured her. “He’d never hurt me,” she whispered back to her friend, her eyes shifting to him, knowing that he probably heard her. 

He looked out the window, refusing to meet her eyes.

He heard the group of Marie’s friends move through the diner and out the door, watched them from the window as they climbed into a few different cars and sped off Westbound. He caught the shadow of her reflection on the window when she stopped at his table. She slid into the booth opposite him without needing his invitation. 

“Rough night?” she asked.

He looked at her, managing a smirk. “And here I thought I cleaned up pretty well,” he joked. 

She raised the corner of her lips in a reluctant smile, then shook her head. She was stopped from speaking by the arrival of their coffees. “Thanks,” Marie told the waitress who offered a quick smile before walking away from the table. 

“Have a good time?” he asked, taking a sip of his coffee black, watching as she put several of those little cream containers into her mug, then emptied four sugar packets into it. 

She grinned up at him as she stirred. “Oh yeah,” she confirmed. 

She didn’t offer any details, he knew, because he was always very careful to show little to no interest in the things she did with her friends. He knew the most interesting things about her night just by the smell of her, anyway. She had drank, but she hadn’t done any drugs or smoked. She had exerted herself, probably dancing, but hadn’t had sex.

They lapsed into silence, which was pretty common between them and he sat back to enjoy his coffee in the comfortable silence and familiar scents of her. 

It took him a few moments to realize something was up, that she wasn’t as easy in her silence as she usually was. He tuned into her more than he already had, noting the slight quickening of her heartbeat, the way she was drumming her fingers on the side of her coffee cup and the would be casual glances at him and his heart sank. 

They had been dancing around one particular issue since she turned sixteen. And as soon as he realized it was about the time he tried to cut her out of his life. He had noted her infatuation with him then, but she was young and impressionable, so he thought if she spent enough time around other mutants, she’d realize what she felt for him wasn’t really love. He knew the others had taken her aside and talked with her about this as well, because they’d talked to him about it too. So, he stayed away from her, spent more and more time away from the mansion, tried to ignore her when he was there, but it didn’t work.

He could feel in that way he knew when someone was done evaluating and was about to jump into the fight that she was getting herself ready to say something big – something monumental. Something he knew would change everything.

He told himself to avoid her eyes, but somehow, there he was.

“I love you.”

He felt the shift in his center, but long years of practice helped him keep his expression neutral. And maybe his fingers tightened around the mug of coffee, but her eyes were on his and she didn’t notice. A part of him wanted to explain, but she didn’t deserve excuses. There was only one thing he could do, one way he could respond.

“I don’t,” he said.

He watched as his words and their meaning went through her, watched the excitement and the nervousness and some of the sass that made her who she was die in her eyes as his meaning became clear, but before he could read anything more in her expression, she lowered her gaze, her glove-clad hand absently rubbing at a burn on the cheap table between them.

He wondered whether he should get up and leave, worried she’d cry, but he should’ve known better. His Marie was stronger than that, and it took her only a few moments before she nodded, glancing up at him, but not keeping his gaze. 

“Okay,” she said, voice tight. She nodded again and slid out from behind the table, carelessly grabbing her bag and slinging it across her shoulders. “Thanks for the coffee,” she stated, glancing at him one more time before turning and starting for the door. “I’ll see ya at home,” she threw over her shoulder as she went. 

He was halfway out of his seat, her name on his lips when he stopped himself. He watched her walk into the parking lot and approach one of the cabbies smoking outside his cab and get into the back seat. He sat back down, eyes never leaving her as the cab made a u-turn right outside the window where he was sitting and merged onto the highway heading back to Westchester. 

He fought with himself, sitting there – called himself an asshole for hurting her, an idiot for not seeing this coming and doing something – anything – to keep her from saying those words to him. He called himself a coward, too, for taking the easy way out.

But in the end, he couldn’t deny that there was no other way this conversation could’ve ended…she deserved better than him and he knew it.

_*iii*  
“…I know my lies cannot make you believe/We’re running in circles that’s why…”_

Weeks passed. He stopped counting after day nine, stopped glaring at Marie’s friends who stared at him as he passed and whispered wonderings after he was gone, stopped glowering at Storm when she offered to listen if he wanted to talk or growling at Scooter when he approached with that determined air of one who would set things right. Eventually, he just ignored them all, spoke only when necessary to train the kids he needed to train, then went and got as close as someone with his metabolism could get to drunk and beat up on people in any cage fights he could find at night so that he could just pass out when his head hit the pillow instead of sit there and think about how Marie was obviously avoiding him, or wondering what he could do to change it.

And every time he got on his bike and sped down that drive away from the Mansion, he thought he wouldn’t come back, and every time he got on his bike at the end of the night, he always pointed it back. He wasn’t stupid – he knew that he was waiting. Waiting for Marie to work her shit out and let him know they could go back to being…well, to being whatever it was they had been before. And he told himself it was because with the way things stood, she wouldn’t let him help her if she was in trouble, and how could he keep his promise to always protect her if she didn’t let him? 

Whether he believed it or not depended largely on the amount of liquor he’d consumed.

And one day, in early Fall, he was crossing the upstairs hallway when he smelled her in the entryway. He acted without really thinking, crossing to the stairs, eyes taking her in against the light from the outside as she took hold of her bag, and then stopped. He looked up to find her eyes on his and he felt his heart stop at the naked pain in them. But she blinked, and it was gone, leaving behind a horrible sort of stoniness. 

“I thought that was you, chica,” Jubilee called from the rec room, approaching the entryway. “Are we going running, or what?” she asked, then glanced at what Marie was staring at, her expression changing the minute she spotted him. “Uh…” she hesitated. 

Marie blinked, a smile slipping onto her lips as she turned to her friend. “I’ll be right down,” she told her, closing the door and finishing slipping off her bag. “It’ll take me five minutes to change,” she said, her voice calm and casual, but he could see the tightness in her arms and shoulders. “I promise!”

Without another look at him, she sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time, pausing only when she reached the step where he was standing with his legs spread shoulder-width apart. She didn’t look at him, but after realizing he wouldn’t move, began to climb the step sideways, carefully pressing against the wall so that she avoided even grazing against him. Cursing under his breath as she sprinted the rest of the way to the landing and to her room, he turned around and sighed. For a moment, he fought his instinct to follow her.

“Fuck it,” he grumbled, climbing the steps to her room. 

The door was closed when he reached it, but he could hear the thump of her boots hit the floor, and he didn’t bother knocking. He turned the knob and pushed it open, stopping in the threshold when she turned to face him with her fingers on the buttons of her blouse. 

“Marie—“ he started, but she interrupted him, her voice sharp and tight.

“--I’ve gotta change,” she motioned the hallway, but he wouldn’t budge.

“We’ve gotta talk,” he said instead, for some reason, stuck on the threshold when he normally would’ve just come inside. 

“No,” she shook her head, turning around and busying herself with grabbing her workout clothes from drawers with a bit more force than necessary. “No, we don’t,” she said, her back to him. 

Up until that moment, although he _knew_ that Marie was avoiding him, he hadn’t had obvious proof. Someway, somehow, she’d just stopped being in the same places he was, as if she had some sort of fucking ESP when it came to where he’d be, but this obvious evidence of her desire to cut him out of her life pissed him off.

“Enough, Marie,” he growled, unable to keep the anger out of his voice, and he could see her react to it as if he’d shoved her. Could almost literally see the hackles rise. 

She whirled on him, her eyes flashing. “I agree,” she said, practically growling herself. “Leave…” she paused a moment. “Please,” she added as an afterthought, her voice tight with the unsaid.

He couldn’t believe her nerve – she was avoiding him, she made this whole situation happen, and now she was avoiding him. So, rather than do as she asked, he stepped into her room and closed the door firmly behind him. “No,” he said. “Not until we settle this.”

She crossed her arms across her chest, narrowed her eyes and popped her hip in that way that let him know she was losing patience fast. “There’s nothing to settle,” she said, a bit of her southern twang coming through in the o’s and to’s. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said through grit teeth.

Her expression went from mad to disbelieving and she almost rolled her eyes. “Yes,” she answered. “So?” 

He raked a hand through his hair, wishing he could just grab her and shake her and make her understand, somehow make everything go back to the way it was. He shook his head again. “I don’t want you to.”

She sighed, her hands falling from her chest to her sides. “I can’t help that,” she said, and her voice was softer than it had been the whole time they’d been talking. 

“Why not?” he asked, trying to ignore the edge of desperation in his words. 

It took her a moment, the look of disbelief back in her expression, she made as if to turn away, and he could hear a kind of choked laugh escape before she turned back to him. “What do you want from me?” she asked instead of answering. 

What did he want from her? He wasn’t sure he knew at that point. He wanted her to not have told him she loved him, not have made him say he didn’t love her, he wanted to go back to the day after her birthday and joke around with her and have coffee and drive her back home where things would stay the way they had been without him having to face the fact that she could never have what she wanted… _should_ never have it…

“I want you to not be mad at me.” It was the simplest answer he could come up with – also, the truest. 

“I’m not mad at you,” she admitted softly. But she wasn’t meeting his eyes, hardly looking at his face. 

She wasn’t mad at him? “Then what the _hell’s_ all this about, Marie?” he demanded. She flinched and it made him take a breath in an attempt to reign himself in. She wasn’t afraid of him, exactly, he could smell that, but she seemed wary. “Are you punishing me or something for your birthday?” he asked.

“This isn’t about _you,_ Logan!” she exclaimed, raising her hands and turning around again. Before he could ask her what it was about, however, she turned back to him. “This is about me,” she brought a hand to her chest, looking at him. “The way _I_ feel and the fact that I can’t…” she shook her head. “I can’t look at you right now without thinking that you can’t love me.” He watched as the sudden influx of verve left her and she sat on the bed, her hands rubbing at her face, the sharp bite of unshed tears in the air. 

Fuck, he thought. He could see the misery in her, smell it and it suddenly hit him why she had been avoiding him. Hell, she had told him outright. She couldn’t look at him. The realization rang through him like a death knell: there was no way they could go back to being what they had been, not without hurting her. 

He didn’t really know what to say, but he took a step toward her, and opened his mouth, hoping something would occur to him, but she stood up suddenly.

“No, Logan,” she insisted, raising a hand between them, as if warding him off and he stopped dead in his tracks. “We can’t go back to being friends,” she said, as if she had somehow read his thoughts. “Not right now,” she shook her head and looked away again, her eyes falling on the door behind him. “Not while I still feel like this.” She walked to the door and opened it. When he didn’t take the hint, she met his eyes and although he could see the emotion gathering in them, she wasn’t crying. “I know it’s not your fault,” she told him. “I don’t blame you,” she insisted. “But…” she sighed. “Just, please. Go.”

He nodded, but she wasn’t looking at him again, and as he watched her, hand fisted tightly around the doorknob, half leaning against the wood, face tight and eyes averted, he knew he had to do what she asked. So, he walked out without another word. 

He heard the door click shut behind him when he was halfway down the corridor, but even though he wanted to, he didn’t turn back. 

She was right. He couldn’t keep expecting her to act as if nothing had happened between them when her heart was broken – hell, he knew that the only way she would get over him was if she wasn’t reminded about him every single moment she was in the Mansion…

Not to mention it’d be better off for his sanity if he didn’t have to smell her every damn where he went.

But, as he packed his few essentials in his saddle bags and went to the garage without a word to anyone, he couldn’t help but hate the feeling of finality in it all.

_*iv*  
“In my dark times / I’ll be going back to these streets / promising everything I do not mean…”_

Falling back into bad habits was easy, but when you’re not even trying to stop yourself from doing it, it makes it easier than stepping through a door. One minute, he was Wolverine, the X-Man, mutant rights activist (of a sort) and protector. The next, he was back to being the nomad cage fighter with a chip on his shoulder and hair-pin temper.

He didn’t even mark the change until some promoter at his last fight in some shit-hole in Bumblefuck, North Dakota told him about how much better the cage fights were across the border in a hellhole town in Alberta called Laughlin City. The reminder of the place where they’d met hit him square between the eyes. As he looked at himself in the mirror that night where the bruises were quickly healing along his ribcage, his first thought was that he didn’t recognize himself. 

Then, he realized that wasn’t right – he knew this version of himself all too well. It had just been so long since he’d seen it (since the night before his last cage fight the last time he had been in Laughlin City, to be specific) it had taken him a moment to recognize it.

When he left that motel a few hours later, he made sure to leave a few twenties on the table to replace the shattered mirror in the bathroom. He also made sure to point his bike South.

_*v*  
“…in my dark times / baby, this is all I could be / only my mother could love me for me / in my dark times…”_

Ororo found him about five months after he left the Mansion at a roadside diner near Newton, Kansas. He knew Chuck had sent her, so he didn’t ask. She didn’t comment on the bloody stains on his t-shirt or the bruises that were healing as she watched along his jaw and hands. They shared breakfast and she told him, in that subtle way she had, that his absence was felt. She didn’t ask him if he’d be coming back, but it was clear to him she was sent to measure whether he would.

He didn’t ask about her, even though seeing the Weather Witch made it difficult to keep her off his mind. 

“I’m not needed in Westchester, ‘Ro,” he told her near the end of their meal. “And staying in one place makes my ass twitch,” he added gruffly. 

Ororo was quiet for awhile, sipping at tea. He could practically feel the wheels turning in her head, and he wondered what she was contemplating saying. He hadn’t talked to anyone about what had happened on Marie’s birthday, and he doubted she would either. 

“Your leaving surprised her, I think,” Ororo said calmly. 

He looked up at her from where he had been about to take a gulp of coffee. “Her?”

She met his eyes and raised a brow. “Granted, I am not one to engage in idle gossip, but I would have had to be blind to overlook the strain on your relationship with Rogue in the weeks after her birthday, or stupid to be unable to put together the fact that you left after confronting her last Fall.”

“Hn,” he said noncommittally and drank some coffee. 

“She avoids talking about you, even when other students mention you, but I was there the day she realized you’d left the Mansion and she was obviously surprised.”

He thought about Marie being surprised at his leaving and huffed out a laugh. “Doubt it,” he said, still looking at his coffee cup. He could feel ‘Ro staring at him, so he looked up and met her eyes. “She asked me to leave.” 

Ororo frowned and started to speak, but he raised a hand to stop her. 

“Look,” he interrupted. “I appreciate you coming here, but I’m not ready to go back yet.”

“But why would Rogue –“ Ororo started. 

“She had her reasons,” he assured her. “I’m no good there, ‘Ro,” he added. “You need someone to go on a mission with you to break some heads, I’m your guy, but I’m not the rusticating in the country type, I only ever stayed to—“ he cut himself off before he said too much, but Ororo wasn’t fooled and she finished the sentence for him.

“To look after her,” she said, her voice not unkind. 

“She don’t need me, anymore,” he said. “So, that’s that,” he finished, setting his mug down, empty. He stood up and dug in his jeans pockets for money. 

“I don’t think that’s true,” Ororo told him softly. 

He glanced at her sideways and shook his head, dropping some money on the table and grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair. “I’ve got no business staying at the Mansion, darlin’,” he shrugged into the jacket and looked at her. “We all know that.” He put a hand on her shoulder as he walked behind her, and didn’t look back as he left the diner and walked to his bike.

_*vi*  
“Light one up, let me bum a smoke / Still calming down, dripping throat / I got another man’s blood on my clothes / But an endless fog’s the life I chose…”_

Time moves on, as it does, but every one of his days blends into the next without much changing, except the scenery and that he learns to ignore. It’s nearly a year after he left the Mansion and he’s somewhere in Georgia, or maybe he’s crossed over into Florida by now, he couldn’t be sure.

The night ends much like most of his nights end, a cigar and a fifth of Jack at the bar, some woman making eyes at him from across the room, and another man’s blood on his clothes again. It occurs to him as he considers whether to take the woman up on the invitation in her eyes that he probably didn’t have any clothes left without blood on it – his, or a stranger’s. And the thought crosses his mind as he feels wounds along his thighs heal themselves and tendons somewhere near his ribs knit back together that maybe he was getting sloppy in his old age, dragging the fights on for longer than he needed to, letting his opponents get in more hits than he ever had before, and he wonders at it, but not too hard. 

As usual, anytime his thoughts wandered too close to her, he shut that shit down. 

Maybe he had just been distracted.

Distracted. He scans the room behind him in the mirror behind the bar, but stops himself before he can do more than a cursory sweep. It was a few months back that he realized in a startling moment of clarity that every time he’d looked out between the chain link before his fights, he’d always been looking for her, and since he had no reason to think she’d ever come looking for him, he had to stop doing that. But maybe he wasn’t as good at catching himself doing it as he’d like to think. 

A glance at the monster truck calendar pinned up behind the bar reminds him that it is almost her birthday again and whatever thought he’d had of forgetting himself for a while with the woman at the table flees. He downs the alcohol in his glass instead, not that it would do much, but it warms him some as it goes down and that was all he’d learned to expect from alcohol. 

A year was more than enough time to get over someone like him, wasn’t it? 

He doesn’t follow that question through, because what if it was?

He leaves the bar not long after.

Almost as soon as he steps onto the second floor landing and onto the open air walkway in front of all the rooms, he stops and frowns. He sniffs the air and catches something on the breeze, but it’s gone as soon as the wind shifts and for a moment, he isn’t sure he can trust his own senses. 

Still…it smells like Marie. 

He sniffs at the doors of the rooms immediately adjacent to the stairwell he used to reach the second floor, but the smell doesn’t get any stronger. It was as if she’d walked along this corridor, but it was faint – hour, maybe two. It was so faint, he could almost be imagining it. 

After all, why would she be there? 

What fucking trickster god would lead her to be staying in the same motel as him in fucking Boondocks, Georgia?

He steps down the hallway, making himself walk at his normal pace, refusing to let himself sniff at every door he passes for the chance that she might be in one of them, but his senses are on high alert, just the same. 

So, when he reaches his door and the smell of her wafts over him like the scent of the ocean on the breeze, he pauses, unsure for a moment what to do. His body acts without conscious input from his brain and while he’s still wondering what to do, some part of him is cataloguing the sounds from inside the room and recognizing the quickening of her heartbeat – the fact that she’s alone. He takes a step back, but when he hears her stand, he reacts automatically, his hand on the knob, a quick flick breaking the flimsy lock as he pushes the door inward.

_*vii*  
“In my dark times / I still got some problems, I know / Driving too fast, but just moving so slow / And I’ve got something I’ve been trying to let go of / Pulling me back every time…”_

Once again, he finds himself staring at her, frozen in a doorway. Moments pass without either of them moving. Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out. She’s obviously rattled, and the longer they stare at each other, the faster her heart rate becomes.

And still, his eyes drink her in. Her hair is picked up in a ponytail at the back of her head, a long sleeved thermal top hugging her body, and tucked into well-worn jeans. Her glove-covered hands are wrapped up in each other in front of her and her eyes…

She had come to find him. The realization filters through slowly, and for a moment, he thinks she’ll make a joke about whether he’d lost the grooming kit she’d given him a few years ago or just been too lazy to shave and brush his hair. He’d make a joke back about not needing to be a prissy man in order to be good looking and everything would be the way it was. But his hopes of that die a little more with every moment they stare at each other without speaking.

He thought maybe he’d say something, but words burst out of her as if she had to fight for the breath to speak.

“I missed you.”

Her words hit him like a bucket of ice water and he frowns, parsing through the various responses to that comment he could come up with.

“I didn’t want you to go.”

He scoffs half under his breath, and, finally realizing that he was still standing in the doorway of his room, he steps into it, letting the door swing closed behind him. He glances at her as he takes a few steps into the room, wondering what her reaction will be, and he catches her looking him over, eyes lingering on where he guesses he has blood or rips on his clothes because her eyes become somewhat hooded and tortured. 

He doesn’t have to stretch his senses too far to know her words were bullshit and he calls her on it. “You’re lying, kid,” he tells her, glad his voice was measured, even if it is lower than he would’ve liked. 

“No,” she argues. His eyes must’ve told her he wasn’t buying, because she shakes her head and sighs. “Okay,” she admits, “maybe I did want you to _go_ ,” she shrugs, “but I never wanted you to—“ she trails off.

Instead of looking at her again, he goes to the dresser where he drops his keys and the money in his pockets, more out of habit and something to do than conscious instruction to his body. “To what?” he prompts, dropping his saddle bags next to the dresser, tossing his jacket on the shitty armchair in the corner. He can feel her watching him, but he stops himself from looking at her. 

“To leave forever,” she finishes, her voice doing that breathy, soft thing again, and he whirls on her, about to call her on her bullshit, again, but she exhales loudly. “God, Logan, what?” she asks, clearly exasperated. “What do you want me to say?” A strand of her hair has come loose from the ponytail and has fallen in front of her face and she pushes it angrily.

_‘What do I want her to say?’_ he asks himself. He wasn’t sure he knew. He watches her walk to the window and stare out. He is still thinking of what to answer her when she speaks again. 

“I was wrong,” she says softly, bringing her arms up to wrap around herself. “I was a stupid brat, and I was wrong.”

He can’t quite believe what he’s hearing. Nearly a year later and she thinks he wants her to admit to being _wrong_? 

“You were wrong,” he echoes, half disbelief.

She turns on her heel to look at him, the glint of stubborn he is so familiar with back in her eyes. “I won’t take back what I said,” she insists. 

His first instinct is to curse; so much time hoping they could just go back to what they used to have and he wouldn’t have to choose between hurting her or hurting himself and here she was, outright confirming that wasn’t possible. 

When he doesn’t say anything, she frowns and repeats, “I won’t,” through slightly grit teeth, daring him to argue with her. 

But he doesn’t, because deep down, he knew she wouldn’t take it back, no matter how much he had hoped she would’ve gotten over him so they could eventually go back to being…something. So he wouldn’t have to spend endless hours and days away from her, unable to look at her or talk to her. Days that bled one into the other while he numbed himself with booze and violence so he didn’t realize she was gone.

And he feels like ripping into something because although _he knew_ that was a bad thing, her not moving on from him, the beast inside him was so _fucking glad._

At his lack of response, she continues speaking. “I won’t take back that I love you,” she insists, and at that, he looks up at her. “But I was a stupid immature kid, and I didn’t know how to deal with the fact that you didn’t love me back.” She turns her back on him again without waiting for him to respond and his eyes search her silhouette in the window.

“I don’t know if you left because of me,” she whispers after a few moments, “but if you did…” she sighs. “Don’t.”

_‘If?’_ he echoes in his head, wondering if she could actually doubt that it was her words that sent him away, her refusal to accept what he could offer her that left him no choice but to go. He’s walking toward her, but every step is like walking through water. He watches her lower her forehead against the window and can see with disconcerting sharpness her breath as it fogs the glass.

“I’ll pretend I don’t,” she whispers. “I won’t say a word,” she raises her head and searches the room behind her for his reflection. “I’ll even understand if you don’t want to be friends anymore,” she tells him once their eyes meet. “or if you won’t give me a chance to show you I can be happy with just that…” her eyes, even through the reflection, are pleading. “Just…” she turns around to face him, meeting his eyes straight on. “…come home.”

He stops moving and they are no more than ten steps away from each other, but he can’t take another step. She just wanted him to come home? He wonders whether Chuck sent her just to get him to come home after Ro failed, but disregards that option as too cruel for the telepath. So this was coming from her – she was asking him to come home, promising him to pretend she didn’t love him even while telling him she still did, promising to give him exactly what he’d been hoping for – a chance to return to what they used to have.

It surprises him that it isn’t enough. Not after months of dreaming about her – dreams where he doesn’t send her away that morning in the diner when he wakes up aching and longing and dreams where she’s dead and gone, broken before he can reach her and he wakes up drenched in sweat, claws extended and bed in tatters…dreams, even, when he comes upon her having breakfast at a table with some nondescript husband and toddler children and he wakes up empty. 

Dreams, no. Nightmares, he corrects himself. Nightmares, all. 

Realizing she’s not going to say anything more, he clenches his jaw. “Is that it?” His fingers are twitching, trying to find purchase on something he could hold, something he could control.

“I don’t know what else to say,” she concedes, arms still encircling her waist as if protecting herself. “What more do you want from me?” 

He can’t believe she’s standing here, after sending him away, after ignoring him, and asking him what he wanted from her, acting as if he were the one that had caused this rift. He can’t believe she is asking him to return to a home that isn’t a home unless he is there with her. “Do you really think we can go back to being…” he falters for a moment, unsure of how to describe what they were, “…whatever we were, just like that?” 

He hears her heart beat peak and he knows his question has made her angry, and he’s glad, but when she opens her mouth, she closes it again without saying a word. He watches as she sits down on the rickety straight backed chair near the scarred round table as some realization crosses her features. A realization that triggers the scent of tears in the air again. The instinct to reach out and soothe her nearly overwhelms him, but he pushes it back and waits. When the tears overflow past her lashes, he sighs.

“Marie,” he says softly. He watches as the tears race down her cheek.

“If not like this, then how?” she asks, her voice tight with the effort of speaking passed the tears.

He doesn’t know. His only hope, one he hadn’t really even let himself think of clearly, had been she would realize she didn’t really love him, not the way she thought she did, and his being near her wouldn’t hurt her anymore. But what she was proposing would never work. He couldn’t possibly be in her company, every day, knowing she loved him and pretend that he didn’t—

He takes a step toward her, “Marie—” But she stands up suddenly, cutting him off.

“Stop saying my name, damnit!” she exclaims. “Just tell me what I have to do to fix this!” She fists her hands at her side, her eyes blazing but still moist holding his for a few moments, before she turns away from him. 

He’s moving toward her and he doesn’t even remember ordering his feet to move, but he can’t stop himself from being near her.

“If not like this, then tell me how,” she repeats. “Tell me what you need, Logan!” she demands, turning around to face him, and jerking a bit in surprise at his sudden nearness. “Just—“ she says, attempting to continue her point.

But he can’t stand it anymore and before he really knows it, his hands are on her shoulders now and he’s shaking her because, why can’t she see? “You push me away,” he tells her. “You leave me alone to face the fact that you love me for nearly a fucking year, Marie,” he flings at her. “And now you want to fix,” he nearly spits out the word, “this?” he finishes, shaking her a little again, and a part of him is surprised that he can’t see fear in her eyes or smell it in her scent. A part of him knows he should stop, knows that this is getting out of his control, but he doesn’t know what he’d do if it was in his control, and most of him just doesn’t fucking care anymore. “A year, of knowing I couldn’t have you the way you wanted me to, and that you wouldn’t have me the only way I could have you, and now you’re—“

“Logan,” she spoke, confusion in her eyes.

“No, Marie,” he insists. “You said it – we can’t be friends.” She winces at her own words flung back at her, but she’s still only confused, not afraid. “Not after you make it so hard to pretend and then throw me away—“

“—I didn’t,” she starts to say, but before either of them know what’s happening, his lips are on hers, his hands on her shoulders gripping her so tight if he were thinking straight he might be worried about leaving bruises. But the moment their lips touch, all thought of what he should do is gone and all that’s left is the taste of her in his mouth, her scent all around him, her warmth under his hands and he tries to take more of her in, his tongue invading her mouth and searching out all the hidden tastes of her. And he drinks her in like a thirsty man who thought he’d die without ever taking a drink of water, and he thinks he’s more inebriated by her than any of the alcohol or drugs he’d ever tried.

And then he feels the first tug of her mutation like a painful pull in his chest. Mixed with the taste of her, he can’t tell at first if it’s pleasure or pain, so he doesn’t push away from her or ease up on the raid of her mouth. It isn’t until she pushes him away that he realizes his thoughts have gone fuzzy and his legs weak, and still, he doesn’t let her go. 

“Stop it, Logan!” she exclaims, breathless, fear in her eyes for the first time as she searches his face for evidence of the consequences of their kiss.

He feels drunk on her, and only part of it is in response to what her mutation took from him. “No,” he pants, bringing her close even despite the tensing of her body telling him she’s going to fight him this time, but he rests his forehead on her hair and she relaxes a little. “I won’t,” he says, his hands on her shoulders loosening some of their grip, focused only on breathing, still surrounded by her scent.

“But you said you don’t love me,” she spoke incredulously into the silence. 

He would’ve laughed if he had the strength to, but as it was all he could do just to keep standing while his body healed itself from the energy sap of her mutation, he didn’t. “I lied,” he admits instead. 

Her reaction is instantaneous, twisting until she’s out of his hands and her hands pushing at his chest hard enough so that in his weak state, he stumbles onto his knees. “You bastard,” she declares, turning toward the door and he tries to find the strength to stand to keep her from running, because he knows her enough to know that she will. “All these months –“ she’s saying, clearly incredulous, “this whole year, and you—“ she turns back to face him, glaring at him, unconcerned with the fact he’s still kneeling on the ground. “You bastard!” she repeats, with more vehemence this time, before turning back to the door, yanking it open and stalking out. 

The thought of losing her again, after all this, gives him the strength he needs to stand before his body is strictly ready for it, so by the time he’s exited the room, she’s only halfway across the parking lot. He swings himself over the metal railing and lands on the first floor with barely a stumble, feeling his strength returning even as he takes long strides to catch her. His hands take hold of her forearm and he spins her around to face him. She struggles to free herself from his grasp, but he’s already recovered and he isn’t letting her go. 

“No more running, Marie,” he tells her and she stops struggling. He waits until she’s looking in his eyes before speaking again. “You wanted this,” he says. “You love me,” he accuses. “And you wouldn’t let me pretend otherwise.” 

“Why’d you put me through all that, Logan?” she asks, breathing hard. “Why?” she insists. “A year!”

He frowns. “Do you think I want to love you?” he demands. “Do you think I want to watch you age, or know that you’re hurting when I can’t?” he persists. “Do you think I want to leave you behind?” He grits his teeth, glaring at her. “Do you, Marie?” he insists. 

The tears are running down her cheeks freely now. “So don’t,” she answers. “Don’t even worry what I feel,” and even through the tears, he can see she’s still angry. “Don’t worry that I’d be willing to be whatever you’ll accept just to spend time with you,” she continues. “Even if I will grow old and you won’t,” she places a hand on his chest and feebly pushes at him. “Stay here and don’t grow old all by yourself for all I care,” she finishes, twisting to get out of his hold, but he doesn’t let her go. 

He feels the tightness in his chest from the realization of what he is about to do, knows that this is one of those moments where there'll be no turning back from, and a part of him is warning him to stop, to let her go, to run so fucking far away she’ll never come looking again, for her own fucking good, but he’s tried that. He’s tried to be the good guy, to make things easy for her, to keep her from hurting in the long run, but all he’s done is hurt her now and kept himself from even the weak comfort of being around her in the process. 

He never said he was any kind martyr.

“It’s too late for that now,” he says, his voice coming out low and soft. He reaches out and his finger gently raises her chin so their eyes meet again, releasing her before her mutation can even think of kicking in. “You might come to regret this,” he warns and scoffs a bit. “Hell, I know I will,” he admits. “But it’s too late now.” She means to speak, he can tell, but he won’t give her the chance, his lips coming down on hers again, this time a gentle, almost chaste, caress of lips rather than the claiming kiss they’d shared earlier. He feels her respond, hesitantly at first, and then more surely. He feels the soft tug of her power and he ends the kiss, but pulls her against him. “You’ve got me now,” he whispers against her cheek as his arms wrap around her to anchor her firmly in place. His hand cradles the back of her head and he pulls back just enough so that they can look at each other again. “Do you understand?” he asks. 

He sees the response in her eyes.

_“…pulling me back every time…”_

  
**Note:**  
The song used in this fic is “Dark Times” by The Weeknd, feat. Ed Sheeran. 


End file.
